


step back and see our story through the future’s eyes

by everqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Pre-Canon, and lucretia being strong and powerful and hurting, mood whiplash like a motherfucker, snapshots of lucretia right after the voidfishing, there's some sweet bits but also some angst and bittersweetness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 19:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16960377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everqueen/pseuds/everqueen
Summary: snapshots of the time before the moon base(title from "Redacted", a TAZ fan song)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6KcbIW78gQ





	step back and see our story through the future’s eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hoothootmotherf_ckers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoothootmotherf_ckers/gifts).



Lucretia is living with ghosts.

She thought she was done with that, after cycle 65. She thought she had had her unwanted fill of drifting through the empty halls of the Starblaster, missing the bicker of the twins, Magnus yelling about the most recent dog-adjacent creature he’s trying to adopt, Merle cracking some gross joke about plants while Barry mumbles through another set of equations that would win the fantasy Nobel Prize on their home world, Davenport watching them all with ill-concealed amusement and pride.

She thought that cycle 65 would be the worst.

Lucretia, as she is with so many things, is wrong there too.

It’s so much worse, because Davenport is still here. He’s still here, curled up on her cot, whimpering his name over and over again, clutching at his ears, his tail lashing. She didn’t know, she  _ didn’t know _ , she’s regretted it a hundred times over but she can’t go back, he’ll stop her and that would doom them all, even more than they’re already damned.

Or, Lucretia is. Maybe there will be a life for them all, after, if not for her.

She can only hope, and plan.

Getting her staff was easy.

But she should have learned from Keeper.

She’s proud, is Lucretia. She wouldn’t have thought that one of her faults, before, but then, she’s changed. Cycle 1 Lucretia would have never even thought of Cycle 82 Lucretia’s plan, let alone have Cycle 99 Lucretia’s guts to go through with what she needed to do to make this world safe, and to help heal her family.

Months after, when Davenport is as stable as she fears he’ll get until she can restore them all, she parks the Starblaster, deep in the Teeth, hiding it carefully away in a cave. It used to be inhabited by a large molebear, but Lucretia clears that with an almost contemptuous bit of spellwork and sets up her wards. She’s undoubtedly one of the most powerful people on this plane, so nothing’s getting through them. She wonders if it’s prideful to say if it’s true.

She hikes through the snow-covered mountains alone, hunting down rumors of something powerful hiding in the mountains. It’s with tremendous disappointment that she finds it to be only a necromantic cult, and destroys them with barely an afterthought, vaguely nodding at an incredibly handsome man who steps through a tear in reality. He splutters in some fake-ass accent about how she could have managed them all on her own, but she just shrugs, wrapping her injuries with practiced ease, and vanishes before he can say anything else.

She’s in that cave for a while before she has a potential lead on Barry’s relic, the bell that he was weirdly cagey about its capabilities, but, knowing Barry, if all of their relics can be used for such evil, his is likely to be Bad with a capital B. It’s in something called Wonderland, in the Felicity Wilds. She clutches at a flyer, gaudy and loud, describing her “prize”. It screams trap, but she can’t just give up, and she hasn’t been able to pinpoint even rumors of any other relic.

After some thought, she takes Davenport  _ and  _ Fisher with her, settling at a small camp in the woods near a little town. The Starblaster she can find and repair. She could even rebuild it, maybe, given enough time. She’s done that before. But her captain? The voidfish? Irreplaceable.

She sighs quietly, fingers drumming on the Bulwark Staff as Davenport pokes at the food over the fire. Fisher trills a small song in its tank, tendrils waving. She smiles absently as Davenport hands her some well-cooked fish. “Thank you, Davenport.”

“Davenport!”

She feels her smile shatter as he turns back to the fire. What has she done?

Fisher trills again, rising from its tank. Lucretia looks up as it drifts forward, pointed towards town. “Fisher?”

It hums again and then takes off, crashing through the trees.

“Fuck,” Lucretia says flatly. “Davenport, I’m sorry.” She picks him up, leaving the wards up around their camp and taking off at a dead sprint after the voidfish. She tracks it to town, following the trail of split branches and confused people, who grow even more confused as a young woman carrying a gnome races past them. She catches sight of the voidfish by chance, the swirling lights in its bell reflecting off the building as she runs past it. She turns on a dime, Davenport in her arms, and skids to a stop in front of a young half elf bard, playing a mournful tune on a violin and staring at what is undoubtedly a giant ball of static floating in front of him.

“Yo,” he says in a deadpan voice, watching her sprint into the square. “This your…. thing?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” she says, getting her breathing under control in a few seconds, a tactic she learned from Magnus. It was one of the more useful things he ever taught her, especially when she had to pretend to be a leader. “I don’t know what… it’s never done this before.”

“What  _ is _ it?”

“Um…” she hesitates for too long. “Magic?”

“Uh-huh,” the bard says mournfully, drawing his bow across his violin again. “Your magic thing’s a music fan, then.”

“You could say that.”

The bard shrugs. “I’m basically the greatest musician, uh, ever? And no one gives a shit in this podunk town.”

“Right,” Lucretia says after a moment. “Come on, Fisher. I’m sorry to bother you…?”

“Johann.”

“Johann,” Lucretia says. “Um, I’ll remember you?”

“No one else will,” he says, closing his eyes and playing a few long, low notes.

Lucretia leaves him there, dragging a protesting Fisher as best she can, the bard’s sorrowful melody floating through the air after them. She makes it back to their campsite as night is falling, taking a slow, deep breath, and settling down.

“Davenport?” Davenport asks, looking at Fisher and visibly wincing, looking away as he rubs at his head.

“Sorry, captain,” Lucretia whispers.

“Captain?” a new, gruff voice calls, footsteps crunching through the trees as Lucretia shoots up, wand clenched in her hand. “That’s me!”

A young man pushes his way through to their campsite (how did he do it, there were wards up,  _ where’s the mistake, how _ \--), face scarred and chest broad, and for a heartstopping moment Lucretia thinks it’s Magnus, Magnus returned somehow, Magnus there to help her like he always has, with a laugh and a duck and a hug, throwing himself into danger to spare any of them hurt. But she takes another moment, as he throws his hands up upon seeing her wand pointed at him, and she knows it’s not Magnus. This man isn’t nearly as scarred, or as smiling. He stands differently, without the lightness of Magnus’s skill or spirit, and there’s something in his eyes that tells Lucretia that Magnus is a better man.

But then, she thinks, a bit desperately, Magnus is a better man than most people.

“Whoa, whoa,” the man says, and the voice is wrong too. He’s gruff but not gruff enough, and his eyes are blue, not brown. “Sorry, miss, I just heard my name.”

“You… what?”

“Captain Bane, at your service,” the man says, giving her a dramatic bow.

“Lucretia,” Lucretia says after a moment. “What’s your… first name?”

“Captain.”

“Captain what?”

“No no,” he rolls his eyes, as if he could have this conversation in his sleep. “My first name  _ is _ Captain. I hope to be a captain someday, just to fuck with people, ya know?”

Lucretia smiles absently, waiting patiently for him to leave. Instead, he smiles back and stands awkwardly at the edge of her camp. “Do you… mind if i join you?”

Lucretia flicks her wand subtly and goes for Detect Thoughts. She gets surprising sincerity, and anxiety about the woods, but little else. She shouldn’t, she knows, she’s too aware of what happens when she makes a mistake, but she’s so tired, and she has to face whatever this Wonderland has in store, and maybe it’s the passing resemblance to Magnus, but she nods.

He’s kinder than she thought he would be, and friendly, and starts drawing some real smiles from Lucretia, although not a laugh, not yet. He’s good with Davenport too, and doesn’t comment on the huge tank filled with water and static. Over time, they fall to talking about Wonderland, and it sounds so much worse than Lucretia thought.

She’s amazed, in hindsight, at how foolish she was, how trusting, but she eventually allows Captain Bane to watch over Davenport and Fisher as she goes into Wonderland, hiring a local guide to help her.

Wonderland is hell.

She barely escapes, limping, bleeding, twenty years gone and half a dozen other things besides. She stumbles back alone, collapsing when she reaches their campsite, Captain Bane and Davenport leaping for her in concern and fear. She only faintly feels their hands as she falls into darkness, a single tear tracing down her now-old face at her failure.

 

*

 

She leaves Bane behind, not long after, but both of them agreeing to keep in touch. Bane promises with surprising fervor to not let her hunt these things alone. He tells her that he’ll make for Goldcliff, that it would be good for her to have a contact in a big city like that. She suggests, wearily, that he look into the militia.

She doesn’t see him again for a long time.

She travels, slowly and wearily, Davenport and Fisher ever with her, back to the hidden cave housing the Starblaster. It’s colder now, and she keeps thinking that she spots flashes of black wings and the shine of a scythe, but she ignores it, wrapping Davenport so that he stays warm and burning a daily spell slot to keep Fisher’s tank floating. She makes it back to the cave at last and collapses there, hissing at her clothing tugging at the raw edges of the wound on her side. She’s had it since Wonderland, and it stubbornly refuses to close or heal, the edges sparking with necromantic energy. She thinks idly, as the rest of her brain and her hands are occupied with setting up her wards and shields, starting a fire, making sure no one has followed them, that she would have been fine if she hadn’t torn away the best parts of the most powerful healer in multiple worlds.

There’s a faintly familiar rip in the air behind her, and she sighs, straightening her newly aching joints out as she turns. There’s that same incredibly handsome man, and Lucretia doesn’t typically swing that way, but she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge just how pretty he is, and Lucretia’s lied enough.

More pressing, perhaps, is the scythe at her throat.

“Lucretia,” the man says in that same fake accent. “You, along with your companion, Captain Davenport, have violated the natural order of life and death too many times to count, along with associating with known liches Lup and Barold J Bluejeans, as well as three others, Magnus Burnsides, Taako, and  _ Merle FUCKING Highchurch _ , who have ducked death more times than I can count! You yourself have died twelve times! Twelve! And your captain over there, he’s died  _ six _ times! Collectively, you and your merry band of death criminals have died  _ one hundred and thirty five times _ ! One hundred and thirty five, Lucretia! And  _ two _ liches!”

Lucretia just stares him down as the edge of his scythe cuts into the skin of her neck just slightly, the sting barely registering over all her aches and pains, new and old. She doesn’t blink, golden eyes boring into fiery red.

He looks away first.

“Well,” he demands, rallying. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Kill me and the entire multiverse is doomed,” she says flatly.

“The whole-- what?”

“And drop the accent,” Lucretia advises, her spare wand slipping down into her hand with the ease of long practice. “It’s a bit embarrassing.”

“Hey now--”

Lucretia blasts him with an entirely too-high level Scorching Ray, the spell slamming into him and sending him flying out of the cave, tumbling down the mountain side through the snow. She sighs and packs their camp with a flick of her wand.

“Come on, Davenport,” she says, waving him towards the Starblaster.

“Davenport,” he says, frowning towards the ship, hands coming up to rub at his head in that particular gesture that means the static is too much.

“I know it hurts. I promise it won’t be for long. Just,” she swallows. “Just trust me, Davenport.”

He frowns but nods, slipping his hand into hers as she leads him and Fisher up the gangplank. She takes off with the ease of long practice, ignoring the tremors of her newly aged hands, vaguely registering a dark shape pulling itself out of the snow. She wonders idly if he’s going to come after her while she’s flying, but hopes that her spell was enough to keep him away for the moment.

She flies.

And then she almost crashes the ship when Davenport says from behind her, “Lucretia?”

“Davenport?” she asks, coasting them to a stop not far from the hated Felicity Wilds and running to him. “Are you alright?”

“Lucretia? The re- the plan, the plan, the rel- the Starblaster, the  _ relics, the relics _ , Lucretia!” Words start pouring out of his mouth, his eyes wide and frantic. Lucretia freezes for only a moment, snapping into action and picking him up, staring at Fisher. It stares back without eyes, tendrils waving gently, and she realizes that some of the lights inside are dimming.

“What?” she asks desperately. “What do you need?”

It trills, that particular one that means Fisher is hungry, and Lucretia paces to the tune of Davenport’s terrified stream of consciousness. After a second, she casts Sleep, hoping to protect his mind from any more damage than she’s already done, and then paces some more in the newly haunting silence.

“You need food,” she says. “Information. But I can’t give you any more of what I have, it’s too important, I--” she freezes. “The bard.”

She runs out of the ship, setting up her wards with a quick flick of her wand, gritting her teeth as her side starts to bleed again. She reaches that same small town and runs to the square where she had met Johann before, hoping against hope that he’ll still be there.

He is, playing another sorrowful melody, eyes closed.

“Johann!” she says, stumbling to a stop in front of him.

“Uhhhh,” the bard says, lowering his bow and raising his eyebrows. “Do I… know you?”

“Yes? Johann, it’s me, it’s-- oh,” she winces, remembering all over again. “It’s Lucretia. Remember, the woman with the gnome and the weird static thing?”

“Nah, lady, she was way younger than you.”

“Yeah, I used to be,” Lucretia says bitterly. “Look,” and she casts Zone of Truth, hoping she won’t need the spell slots. It’s different than when Merle casts it, of course, she’s not compelled like she is when he does it, but it works. The bard’s eyes widen, recognizing the feel of the spell, and she speaks again. “It’s me, it’s Lucretia, and I need your help. Please.”

He eyes her warily but shrugs. “Okay.”

“Come with me.”

She turns and runs again, hoping that her spell on Davenport hasn’t broken yet, and dimly hears Johann grunt in surprise and run after her, trying to keep up. She leads him out of town to the small clearing where she parked the Starblaster, and barely registers that same handsome man standing in front of it.

“Now see here--” he starts, pointing his scythe, but Lucretia brushes past him, sending him flying once again with a Thunderwave.

“Fuck!” he yells as he disappears into the trees with a pained yelp.

“Who was that?” Johann asks, more than a hint of fear permeating his morose tones. “Why are you running into more static?”

“I’ll explain everything,” she says, pulling him up the gangway he can’t see. “But we have to do something  _ now _ .”

“What exactly am I supposed to be doing?” Johann asks, weaving on his feet as Lucretia yanks him up into the Starblaster. “I can’t even like,  _ comprehend _ what’s going on right now.”

“Play something,” Lucretia says, breathless, watching Davenport’s sleeping face twist in pain.

“What?”

“Please!”

He looks at her doubtfully, her face probably the only thing he can really focus on, and starts to play. As he does, the sad tune filling the Starblaster, Davenport’s face eases slightly and Fisher leans out of its tank, tendrils waving towards Johann.

“Do you have sheet music?” Lucretia asks.

“What?”

“For that song, sheet music.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Johann says, digging in his pockets. After a few seconds, he comes up with a crumpled sheet of paper with musical notes scribbled across it.

Lucretia snatches it from his hand and hands it to Fisher, barely noticing Johann’s panic as Fisher consumes it and the melody is lost to him. At least, she barely notices until he grabs her, face pale and afraid.

“What the fuck did you do?” he demands. “My music is gone!”

“Hold on,” she says, pushing him away. She goes to the tank and fills a small glass with Fisher’s ichor and hands it to him before she can second guess what she’s doing. “Drink this.”

“What the fuck?”

“Just do it!”

Johann glares at her but does as she says, wincing as he drinks. “This tastes awful--  _ oh what the fuck _ \--”

He crouches, clutching his head, as the memories return, of the Relic Wars and his song and everything else he knew before Lucretia erased everything. She waits, watching him warily, as he gradually stands and stares at her.

Her mind spins through the repercussions now, of someone else knowing everything (save for Barry, she doesn’t know what happened to Barry, to  _ her brother, where is he _ , focus Lucretia focus!). She can’t do this alone. She needs help, she needs… she’s going to create something. An organization, a group, something,   _ she doesn’t have to be entirely alone _ .

“Who the fuck  _ are _ you?”

“My name is Lucretia,” she says, straightening her shoulders and pinning him with a stare. “But you… you can call me Madame Director.”

 

*   
  


She meets the Millers not long after she recruits Avi to the newly christened Bureau of Balance (she was quickly and mercifully dissuaded from the Bureau of Outstanding Balance by an alarmed Captain Bane and an amused Johann. It’s the first time she hears Johann laugh). Maureen Miller is brilliant and kind and lovely, even if her son is a turd, and Lucretia is more than a little infatuated. She doesn’t let it distract her (much), inoculating them and planning a new floating base. In a fit of drama befitting of the twins, when Lucretia is frankly drunk off her gravitas-laden  _ ass _ from the highly alcoholic contents of the flasks from Avi, Lucretia decides that she’s just going to make it another moon.

“What?” Maureen giggles, face flushed and warm. “A  _ moon _ ?”

“Yeah!” Lucretia declares. “A, a moon base! Yeah.”

“What the fuck, that’s great,” Captain Bane says, laughing, voice even scratchier from the alcohol. “Hell yeah, Director.”

“But uh, people are gonna notice a new moon,” Avi points out, waving his flask in a wobbly way and almost dropping it.

“Avi,” Lucretia says, voice dripping with gravitas. “Avi, be cool for two seconds.”

“I think I’m pretty cool--”

“It’ll be great,” she says with all the seriousness she can muster. “We’ll just… we’ll just use the voidfish. There’s _always_ been two moons over Faerun, it’s fine.”

“Don’t even bother,” Johann advises as Avi opens his mouth. “She’ll do it anyway.”

“Well shit, how are we gonna get to and from?” Maureen asks, flopping against Lucretia’s shoulder. “If it’s gonna be in the sky like my lab.”

“Shit, I dunno, we’ll just, we’ll just,” Lucretia searches for the words through the haze of alcohol. “We’ll fire everyone out of a fucking cannon.”

“ _ What _ ?” everyone choruses except Avi, who looks distinctly thoughtful, and very, very drunk.

“Now hold on,” he says thoughtfully. “I think I can make that work.”

“Avi,” Lucretia says with great seriousness. “That’s what I like to hear. Now pass me that fucking flask.”

She’s so warm, surrounded by new friends, Davenport safe and asleep in the other room, that she can almost forget the gaping hole where her heart used to be.

 

*

 

Not all moments are so warm.

She’s sitting at her desk, surrounded by piles of paper and random bits of spell components. She had passed through Keeper’s inn again, a few years back now, sweeping up a young orc bard named Brad who became quite attached to Johann, and their mission, not long after. She rubs at her temples, a pounding headache lurking, the same wound from Wonderland pulsing pain and spots of fresh blood through the ever-present bandages. It’s been so long,  _ so fucking long _ , since she saw any of her family besides Davenport. She hasn’t even been able to check in with any of them, except for a brief appearance at Magnus’s wedding, disguised, of course, but she couldn’t let something so important be unmarked, even if he doesn’t remember her.

Decision made, she stands, pulling out her stone as she does. The moon base is still being built, of course, it will be years yet before they can work out all the physics and arcane spellwork to get it up and floating, let alone to act as a base, but the fledgling Bureau is still all in one place, now, small as it is. “Maureen?”

Maureen’s voice crackles through the stone. “Yeah Creesh?”

Lucretia winces. “Maureen, please.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. What’s up, Lucretia?”

“Can you watch Davenport for a few days? I’m going on a trip.”

“News of another relic?”

Lucretia pauses. “Maybe,” she lies, easy as breathing, poisonous as arsenic. “Nothing concrete.”

“Got it. We’ll keep an eye on him, don’t worry.”

“Please--”

“I’ll keep Lucas away from him.”

“Thank you.”

“Call us when you’re on your way back.”

“Will do.”

Plans made, she stops in to let Davenport know. It’s a good day, but it’s still hard to tell how much he understands, but he smiles nonetheless. “Be s-s-safe,” he says, with some difficulty, and Lucretia smiles, heart hurting with the guilt she deserves every time she looks at her captain now.

“I will,” she promises, and she leaves.

It’s a few days’ journey to Raven’s Roost from their hidden base. She has few problems on the road, because either people don’t bother taking a second look at an older woman walking alone. The few who do very quickly learn that Lucretia is much, much stronger than she appears.

She arrives when Raven’s Roost is still smoldering.

Shocked, she falls to her knees in front of the wreckage, unknowingly imitating the pose of her brother no more than a week before, driven to his knees by the sight of his love and future taken from him.

She screams, alone in front of the ruins, and her tears turn to bitter, bitter laughter. It might have been for the best that Barry and Lup didn’t ask her to become a lich with them, she thinks wildly, giving voice for the first time to a pointless, uncharacteristic hurt left over from decades before. She can withstand so much, the loneliness, the pressure, having twenty years stolen from her in an instant, but  _ this _ , this might break her, this loss that isn’t even hers to grieve anymore.

A kind old man finds her there as night falls, tears streaking unheeded down the untimely wrinkles on her face.

“You alright there, miss?” he asks, stopping a few feet away so that she can clearly see him.

She turns towards him, hands shaking as she absently wipes at her face.

“You had family there?” he asks sympathetically.

“Something like that,” Lucretia says hoarsely.

“Yeah,” the man agrees soberly. “We’re all still… well.”

“Did,” Lucretia gulps, trying to stabilize her voice enough to talk. “Magnus Burnsides, and his wife, Julia? Did they survive?”

If anything, the man looks even more saddened. “Magnus did,” he says quietly. “But his wife, our general… she didn’t make it.”

There’s a high pitched giggle, hysterical and keening. It takes a few moments for Lucretia to realize it’s coming from herself. Her brother is  _ alive _ , he  _ survived _ ,  _ she doesn’t have to mourn him too _ , but it’s worse, it’s so much worse, his love is  _ gone _ , she’s  _ gone _ , she’s--

“Alright,” the man says, approaching her carefully and helping her to her feet with a firm, kind hand on her elbow. “Come on, miss.”

“I’m much older than you,” Lucretia says wildly.

“I don’t know about that, miss,” the old man chuckles sadly.

She spends a day with the old man and his son, barely the age of Lucretia when she first boarded the Starblaster (for a trip that was supposed to be two months,  _ it was only supposed to be two months she had  _ **_family_ ** _ she wants to go  _ **_home_ ** \--), until she gets herself under control.

She leaves them with heartfelt thanks and sets out alone back towards the base, tears buried with the rest of her grief and regret and guilt, focused anew on the task at hand. If Kalen had gotten his hands on a relic who  _ knows _ the damage he might have caused, it might have been  _ worse _ . Lost in thought, she barely notices the particular coldness until she hears the now-familiar voice, still with that bad fucking accent.

“You!” the voice says harshly, and that same, incredibly handsome man is standing in front of her, glowering, scythe out.

“Me,” Lucretia says.

“No more Scorching Rays, no more Thunderwaves,” he says sternly. “Just you, coming with me to the Eternal Stockade.”

“No.”

“This isn’t an option I’m giving you!”

“First of all,” Lucretia says, grip tightening on the Bulwark Staff. “Drop the  _ fucking _ accent. It’s very bad. Second,  _ I don’t have time for your bullshit, Reaper _ .”

“It’s not--”

“We both know,” Lucretia says, enunciating very clearly and very coldly, ignoring the fact that this was always Davenport’s style, when he was angry. “That I can kick your undead ass, powered by a goddess or not. I am doing important work, and  _ you _ need to stay. Out. Of. My. Way.”

The reaper, because of course that’s what he is, Lucretia has known since the first time he held a scythe to her throat, visibly gulps. “Now, listen,” he says, and thank whatever god or goddess might be listening, he’s  _ finally dropped the fucking accent _ . “I can’t just allow you to walk free, you or your companions. You’ve broken too many sacred laws.”

Lucretia straightens almost imperceptibly, and the reaper takes a single, but significant, step back. “No,” she says, voice low. “You listen. I am done having you dogging my steps everywhere I go. I have had enough. You  _ will _ leave me to my work. Perhaps when I am done, we can work something out.”

Unfortunately, the reaper looks even more determined now, fingers tightening on his scythe. “I don’t know what work you’re doing, but I cannot allow you to continue.”

He points the scythe at her, and all at once, all of Lucretia’s rage and pain and misery comes out at once. She points the Bulwark Staff at him and looks him dead in the eye.

“I’m not sorry,” she says flatly, and casts Sunburst.

Sunburst is an exceptionally powerful evocation spell. It also does a tremendous amount of damage against an undead creature, which the reaper, despite being powered by a goddess, most certainly is. Lucretia’s spell almost obliterates him, his constructed form nearly tearing apart. A ping of guilt filters through the layers of emotion as she stares at him, lying weakly on the ground, gasping for breath that he doesn’t strictly need.

“I will tell you,” she says, speaking to the reaper as much as the Raven Queen herself, who is undoubtedly listening, and undoubtedly enraged. “I do not wish to hurt anyone else, but I can’t--” she breaks, just for a moment, face crumpling, before she pulls it back together. “I  _ have _ to do this. I  _ have to _ . I’ll… I’ll meet with you, Raven Queen, or your emissary, but I have to see this through.” She looks down at the reaper, still on the ground. “Take care that we do not meet again.”

And Lucretia leaves him there, striding on, back to her base, and her bureau, and whatever the future holds.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fic that i banged out while hyped on caffeine and also love for my dear friend Shell!! happy birthday!!! i miiiight add more to this someday? but for now this is what we got!! please enjoy
> 
> love those comments AND those kudos
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


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